Fun game, great art, and great packaging. My wife and I have played a few times now and we really enjoy it. The game has a good balance of strategy and luck. The cards available at the beginning of the game, the cards available for purchase during the game, and some game objectives are randomly determined. But, the game does a good job of giving players some hard choices when bidding for cards, and choosing how to navigate the "Walking" phase of your turn.
Because of the amount of unique cards, randomly determined objectives, and bonus objectives determined by each player, every game is going to be different than the last. For two-player games a third "auto-walker" adds an element of randomness to simulate another player. This mechanic gives two-player games enough variability that you cannot just focus on thwarting your opponent, or blindly following your own plan.
To anyone who has seen this game compared to Wingspan: Dog Park is absolutely not "Wingspan with dogs." I saw this description several times and disagree. There are dozens and dozens of beautifully drawn unique dog cards with their own mechanics and " resource price to play" and players can gain points based on randomly determined dog types. But, the similarities stop there. There is less randomness in Dog Park because the resource pool is not determined by dice. The bidding system makes acquiring new cards more interesting than just drawing from the deck. Also, each turn is comprised of multiple phases that always repeat unlike Wingspan where players decide on what kind of turn they are going to take. Point being, we own both Wingspan and Dog Park and feel like they are very different games. That being said, if you like Wingspan you will probably enjoy Dog Park!
